Warsaw archbishop allowed to challenge spy charge

WARSAW, Feb 22 (Reuters) Former Warsaw archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who resigned in disgrace after admitting he spied for the Communist police, will have the chance to clear his name, a judge said today.

Wielgus was forced to step down last month, days after his appointment by Pope Benedict. He asked a special vetting court earlier this month to accept his case, saying secret agents had blackmailed and harassed him into cooperating.

''We have launched a vetting process in the archbishop's case today,'' judge Zbigniew Puszkarski told Reuters.

On the day he resigned, Wielgus apologised for his actions and admitted he had hurt the Catholic Church. His lawyer Marek Malecki said today that Wielgus never became a ''true collaborator''.

Wielgus follows a string of government officials who have turned to the court to clear their names since Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski came to power and launched a crusade to remove former communists and collaborators from public life.

Poland's powerful Catholic Church and the Vatican were deeply embarrassed by revelations Wielgus spied on his fellow clerics, many of whom fought against the Soviet-led regime.

The court will also examine the case of Andrzej Krawczyk, former foreign policy adviser to President Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw's brother. Krawczyk left office this month after accusations he informed for the communist secret police.

He denies any wrongdoing.

The Kaczynskis' anti-communist campaign has split Poland. Critics call it a witchhunt and say it only reopens wounds from before the fall of communism in 1989.

Others, mostly supporters of the Kaczynskis' ruling Law and Justice party, say Poland cannot become a fully functioning democracy until it examines its past and punishes wrongdoers.

During the Cold War, hundreds of thousands of citizens in communist countries reported on their neighbours and co-workers.

Finance Minister Zyta Gilowska returned to the cabinet in September after the vetting court said it lacked evidence to prove she had been an informer.

Even Lech Walesa, leader of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity that helped topple communism, was accused of informing.

The court cleared his name.

REUTERS SAM PM2154